Efficient complementary viewpoint selection in volume rendering

A major goal of visualization is to appropriately express knowledge of scientific data. Generally, gathering visual information contained in the volume data often requires a lot of expertise from the final user to setup the parameters of the visualization. One way of alleviating this problem is to provide the position of inner structures with different viewpoint locations to enhance the perception and construction of the mental image. To this end, traditional illustrations use two or three different views of the regions of interest. Similarly, with the aim of assisting the users to easily place a good viewpoint location, this paper proposes an automatic and interactive method that locates different complementary viewpoints from a reference camera in volume datasets. Specifically, the proposed method combines the quantity of information each camera provides for each structure and the shape similarity of the projections of the remaining viewpoints based on Dynamic Time Warping. The selected complementary viewpoints allow a better understanding of the focused structure in several applications. Thus, the user interactively receives feedback based on several viewpoints that helps him to understand the visual information. A live-user evaluation on different data sets show a good convergence to useful complementary viewpoints.Postprint (published version

Simulation of the evolution of floor covering ceramic tiles during the firing

In the context of the firing of ceramic tiles the problem of simulating the final shape of the body is relevant because several defects can occur and the tile can be rejected if the conditions of the firing are inadequate for the geometry and materials of the tile -- The existing literature on this problem indicates that previous works present limitations in aspects such as not using a model characteristic of ceramics at high temperatures and oversimplifying the problem -- As a response to such shortcomings, this article presents a simulation with a 3-dimensional Norton’s model, which overcomes the difficulties because it is characteristic of ceramics at high temperatures -- The results of our simulated experiments show advantages with respect to the identification of the mechanisms that contribute to the final shape of the body -- Our work is able to divide the history of temperatures in stages where the evolution of the thermal, elastic and creep deformations is simplified and meaningful -- That is achieved because our work found that curvature is the most descriptive parameter of the simulation, the most important contribution of this article -- Future work is to be realized in the creation of a model that takes into account that the shrinkage is dependent on the history of temperatures -- The main shortcoming of the paper is the lack of physical experiments to corroborate the simulation

'Surfeiting, the Appetite May Sicken': Entrepreneurship and Happiness

Do the presence and nature of entrepreneurship impact on national happiness, and are nations with happy citizens better for entrepreneurs to start new businesses? to provide tentative answers we survey the literature on entrepreneurship and subjective well-being and use various data sources to uncover the first evidence of the relationship between entrepreneurship and happiness at the country level. We find that opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship may contribute to a nation’s happiness but only to a certain point, at which the effects of happiness begin to decline. Moreover, our results suggest that a nation’s happiness affects early-stage opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity

[Photograph 2012.201.b1391.0328]

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma Times newspaper. Caption: "Bob Waller Basketball OU

Longitudinal analysis of entrepreneurship and competitiveness dynamics in Latin America

For many countries, entrepreneurship plays a very important role like a key motor for economic growth and new job generation (Birch, 1979, 1987). Additionally entrepreneurs may contribute with innovations (products or processes) and make important contributions to market competitiveness (Acs and Audretsch, 2003). In Latin America (LA), the -micro and small entrepreneurial business- maybe are one of the most important factors for social development by the high level of job creation (or self-employment) that these kind of enterprise efforts can generate. As a field of research, entrepreneurship in LA is a relative young and rapidly expanding field of knowledge (Tiffin, 2004). Some Latin American countries have experienced a remarkable transformation in the last 20 years, both in terms of economic growth and institutional development. Export of natural resources or commodities and some low value-added processing led the economic expansion until the mid-1990s, but in the last few years the economic growth has showed variations and lower degrees of growth (Echecopar, 2004). For this reason, there is an emerging interest in opinion leaders from public administration, business, academics and general society on how to develop more value-added industries. We think that entrepreneurship and innovation are keys to overcoming this recent lack of dynamism on LA economy. In this research we investigate the relation of entrepreneurial activity and economic development and competitiveness performance of some LA countries

Entrepreneurship and subjective well-being : Does the motivation to start-up a firm matter?

Abstract: Please refer to full text to view abstrac

Efficient complementary viewpoint selection in volume rendering

A major goal of visualization is to appropriately express knowledge of scientific data. Generally, gathering visual information contained in the volume data often requires a lot of expertise from the final user to setup the parameters of the visualization. One way of alleviating this problem is to provide the position of inner structures with different viewpoint locations to enhance the perception and construction of the mental image. To this end, traditional illustrations use two or three different views of the regions of interest. Similarly, with the aim of assisting the users to easily place a good viewpoint location, this paper proposes an automatic and interactive method that locates different complementary viewpoints from a reference camera in volume datasets. Specifically, the proposed method combines the quantity of information each camera provides for each structure and the shape similarity of the projections of the remaining viewpoints based on Dynamic Time Warping. The selected complementary viewpoints allow a better understanding of the focused structure in several applications. Thus, the user interactively receives feedback based on several viewpoints that helps him to understand the visual information. A live-user evaluation on different data sets show a good convergence to useful complementary viewpoints